<p><span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_25" id="Page_25">[Pg 25]</SPAN></span></p>
<h3><SPAN name="XXIII" id="XXIII"></SPAN>XXIII</h3>
<h3><i>Aspiration</i></h3>
<h3>I</h3>
<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">The pale and misty particles of Time<br/></span>
<span class="i2">Hover about us; scarce our eyes can see<br/></span>
<span class="i2">Youth’s far-off dream of what we were to be.<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Life’s truth, which once we would redeem with rhyme,<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Has proved instead a world-worn pantomime.<br/></span>
<span class="i2">The running river of expediency<br/></span>
<span class="i2">Has drowned the hopes that Fortune held in fee—<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Why fall upon the track so many climb?<br/></span></div>
<div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">Why strive to speak what all the earth has heard?<br/></span>
<span class="i2">Why labor at a work the ages plan?—<br/></span>
<span class="i4">Life has been lived so oft—an outworn thing!<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Then hark! the time-sweet carol of a bird,<br/></span>
<span class="i2">New as a flower; and see—ah, shame to man!<br/></span>
<span class="i4">The endless aspiration of the Spring.<br/></span></div>
</div>
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